


The Aborigines

by velveteenshadowboxer



Series: What Happened After [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Anal Sex, Boys In Love, Human!Derek, M/M, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 08:11:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2614598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velveteenshadowboxer/pseuds/velveteenshadowboxer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Looking at this wiry specimen, all light corded muscle on a slender frame, Derek can barely remember the frightened child he found lost in the woods five years ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Aborigines

**Author's Note:**

> A sequel/coda to "The Isolationists." Read the tags.

Scattered shards of shattered glass lie strewn across the concrete in the parking lot of the old hotel. The sign over the entryway, which once lit up the city square in brilliant neon hues, hangs loosely by creaking chains, coated in dust. It is of a piece with the rest of the world: buried in grey.

Derek paces back and forth in the building’s shadow, boots crunching over the glass. Sawed-off shotgun in hand, his finger itches for the trigger at any unfamiliar sound. A flitter of wings beside him as a crow lands on the pavement and hops across the minefield of jagged debris. Its left wing is torn.

An echo down the dark hallway past the lobby; Derek tenses and lifts the shotgun. He relaxes when the moving shape comes into focus.

Any luck? he says.

Stiles unzips the bulging pocket of his blue duffle bag, displays the canned goods. Should last us a few days, he says.

Derek holsters his gun, heads up the ramp for the freeway. Stiles follows close behind.

*****

The desert stretches out before them. Coyotes yipping in distance, the low whistle of the wind whipping across the plains.

Derek drinks from their shared canteen, hiccups as the water dribbles down his chin. He wipes droplets out of his beard, lets Stiles take a swig.

We in Utah? Stiles says, throat bobbing as he swallows.

Derek shakes his head. Still Nevada.

They wander a ways off the side of the road, set up shelter in the hollowed out frame of an abandoned tanker truck tipped over and blown out. The earth all around the wreckage is stained black, some foulness seeped into the ground years back and stayed there.

Stiles hitches his scarf up around his nose, frowning at the scent of rust and some undefined gaseous stench. His eyes gleam in the light of the stars, cheeks tinged pinkish from the wind. He settles in close to Derek’s side, tucks his head up under his chin and rests against his chest.

Derek’s arms go around him like a reflex, unhesitant. On nights like these, it’s second nature to draw near and wrap around each other, meld flesh.

Stiles drifts off as Derek’s fingers thread through his hair. Derek follows soon after, and he dreams of the beach, and of the house in the woods in California.

*****

There are a few strands of grey in Derek’s hair now, glimmers of light hidden in the dark mess. He’s not even thirty yet.

He squints in the glare of the sun, watches as Stiles strips off his layers of clothing and crouches in the murky puddle.

What if we went north instead? Stiles says, scrubbing dirt off his arms. The soft thatch of hair in the center of his chest darkens with a handful of water, wetness trailing down his lean stomach.

Ok, Derek says, and means it. He just wants to see trees again.

Stiles examines a scrape just under his knee and grimaces, splashes some water there. Oregon, he says. Canada after, maybe.

He stands and stretches, shaking out his limbs. It’s alarming still, how quickly he’s shed the softness of youth. Looking at this wiry specimen, all light corded muscle on a slender frame, Derek can barely remember the frightened child he found lost in the woods five years ago.

Stiles steps out of the puddle and Derek takes his turn, cleans himself.

It will be cold, he says, scrubbing fingers through his hair.

We can handle the weather, Stiles says.

*****

They cross through the rail-yard on the outskirts of the city, stopping at the way station where tracks have tangled into a twisted heap of metal, melted together and left useless. Clouds gather over the mountain range on the horizon, cool and wispy now but with an aura of menace nonetheless. The city itself stands eerily still, lightless and empty.

Even from a distance Derek can see the streets are caked with sand; the desert has reclaimed the metropolis.

Stiles shimmies up the side ladder and climbs onto the boxcar, looks out over the landscape with his hands cupped around his eyes. The mountain pass, he decides.

Derek hesitates. Road through town is shorter, he says.

Stiles hops down, casts a distrustful glance back at the spires of abandoned skyscrapers and sprawling suburban neighborhoods. Too dangerous, he says.

Derek shrugs. Dangerous either way.

Stiles gives him a look. Lesser of two evils.

They make for the mountains.

*****

In the foothills they make camp, cook a rabbit over a spit, and eat it down to the bone. Derek snaps apart pieces of the ribs and uses them to help keep the tent straps nailed down.

Mist from the peaks gives the light of the moon an ethereal touch, creates an ambiance they’ve both longed for since coming to the desert.

Rubbing his hands together for warmth, Derek squeezes into the tent where Stiles is waiting, lying on top of the blankets instead of beneath.

Hey, Stiles says.

Derek sheds his shirt, climbs on top of him. Hey yourself, he says.

The flavor of meat lingers in Stiles’ mouth, and Derek can taste a hint of blood as he licks across the top row of teeth. He takes their cocks into the warmth of his hand, pumping quickly, too eager for release to go slow.

Stiles pants against his cheek, breath hot in his ear. The boy trails kisses down his chest, over his collarbone, into his armpit, soft exhales tickling the dusky hair there.

Derek grunts and jerks, spilling between their bellies. He presses his nose into Stiles’ hair, breathes deeply.

Come, he says, still pumping. Stiles does.

*****

In the morning Derek wakes first and goes out to start a new fire and clean the mess off his stomach.

When Stiles emerges from the tent an hour later, he finds Derek eating from a can by the pit, a handful of bottle caps arranged beside him in the dirt in the shape the number 19.

Derek looks up at him and smiles. Happy birthday, he says.

Stiles hugs him from behind and kisses the nape of his neck.

*****

God, Stiles breathes.

The world up here is white. With the sky split open the sunshine warms the thick blanket of snow, melts the top layer of frost and makes it glimmer.

As they trudge along the steep path, the wind shrieks past their ears, batters about the loose folds of their jackets. Using their combined weight, they snap a hefty branch from a dead tree, split it and fashion the pieces into twin walking sticks.

Eyes open, Derek says, points up ahead.

In a circle of stones, a mangled mass of flesh and bone sits in a heap with a red-drenched spear stuck through the chest cavity.

Fresh? Stiles says, already glancing around warily.

Derek approaches the mess, hangs back from the rocks stained dark from the splatter. The corpse is barely recognizable as a person, but its shape and general frame suggests it was a woman. Derek watches bubbling movement beneath the decaying skin, sees a slimy translucent head tear through a hole.

Maggots swarming. Dead a couple days, most likely.

Let’s move on, Derek says.

*****

The far side of the mountain is covered in forest. From the ridge, they watch as tendrils of fog curl and twist around the treetops, hovering in suspension. The valley below sings softly the sounds of unseen birds and beasts.

This will all outlast us, Stiles says, and Derek knows he’s not just speaking of the two of them.

Yeah, he says.

When the last of us are dust the rest will still be here, Stiles says.

Derek touches a hand to the back of his neck, squeezes.

*****

The woods are draped in moss. Brilliant green carpeting, all along the forest floor and extending up the trunks of trees, stretching towards the sky. Rays of sun through the canopy touch down like spotlights every which way.

Can we eat these? Stiles says, crouching down to brush back a clump of wet leaves and twigs, revealing the caramel colored caps of a cluster of mushrooms.

Derek leans in and examines, snorts out a little laugh of recognition. Not unless the trip we’re already on isn’t enough for you, he says pointedly.

Stiles’ eyebrows shoot up and he looks at the fungi with more interest. Ah, he says. Shrugs, casual as ever.

We have time, he says.

*****

But there is no time to have. Derek knows this now, can’t imagine how he was ever unable to see it. Time is the great lie.

He can feel the earth under his feet like it’s melding into his very flesh, every leaf and pine needle distinguishable and _noticed_ against his bare skin. He and Stiles both have removed their shoes, despite the cold, just to feel the softness of the moss. Hands tracing out lines in front of his eyes, he follows the trails of visible motion: his own body both one with the world and yet also distinct.

His body is a fluid thing; both the entirety of his being and yet not _him_ at all.

Stiles giggles helplessly, hunching down against the trunk of a tree like he’s trying to melt into it, a grin positively childlike stretched across his face. It’s all so fantastically pointless, he says, still smiling.

Adds, How was that ever a frightening thought?

Derek reaches across the distance between them, seeking to close it, then turns, distracted by a sound. Fear: through every fiber, every particle of his self, distilled into a panic so paralyzing he feels certain he’ll never be able to move again.

Come back to me, Stiles says, and he’s right there at Derek’s side, touches his arm. The moment passes, and the fear is gone and forgotten. Derek takes Stiles by the hand and leads him to the river, and the world at once seems alarmingly unreal.

At the edge of the water, their fingers untwine. Going separate ways. Derek closes his eyes and opens himself to new visions.

And now he’s somewhere very strange indeed.

*****

I know this is temporary, Stiles says afterwards, when they’re coming down. But I don’t feel afraid of death anymore. He fidgets at Derek’s side, lays his head against his chest.

Derek says nothing, but he feels the same.

They lie in the quiet until morning, then go hunting for breakfast.

They hike twenty miles that day, come upon an old lodge at the edge of the forest, on a ridge overlooking the town. Vines have overtaken the woodwork, twisted around the rot-worn walls like bars on a cage. The door hangs off its hinges, the windows streaked with grime.

We can fix it up, Derek says.

*****

In the month’s time it takes to repair the damage, they reach a tacit agreement that they’re ready to settle somewhere. At least for a while. The nomadic lifestyle has lost much of its charm.

They want a home.

Derek curses, sucking blood off his finger and kneeling spread-legged on top of the roof, hammer in hand. Beneath him he hears the faint ruffling sounds, coupled with the chemical scent, of Stiles scrubbing the muck off and out of the wooden floors.

In the back, beyond the thick line of trees, some unknown beast cries out a warbling moan; the sound echoes.

Shedding his shirt, Derek uses it as a pillow, rests on his back in the light of sun.

Stiles joins him shortly after. Wanna fuck? he says.

They go down onto the grass, and Derek takes him in the shade.

*****

Derek adds the finishing touch: the blue-tinged lantern hanging down above and to the left of the front door, casting a warm glow over the porch.

They sit together on the bench in front of the window and listen to the woods in conversation with itself as the sun creeps out of sight beyond the mountains.

This is all I wanted, Stiles says. This with you.

Derek takes his hand and presses it to his mouth.

The lantern light flickers in the breeze.

*****

Derek thinks that year is perhaps the happiest of his life. Long runs along the ridge of the plateau, the remnants of the old world sprawled out beneath. Lazy nights set to a score of forest insects whispering and clicking and scuttling, Stiles relaxed against his side and drinking in the quiet with him.

In the old town they visit the library, stock up on books. Come upon a moonshine distillery, test if it’s withstood the test of time and lack of use. Go down to the quarry to soak in the sun. They take whatever they can find to create their own fun.

They have each other, through it all.

He doesn’t believe for an instant that any of it is going to last. This peace, like everything else, will eventually be torn to shreds, reshaped into something else, darker. Everything is in flux.

But he still dreams. Still thinks, _what if?_

*****

Every so often they go down to explore the deeper parts of town. The old sugar factory; wheels and rotary dryers and rusted tractors in the great warehouse. 

Stiles climbs up to the top of the mound and slides down on his belly, raising a cloud of dust in his wake. He grins and shakes himself up, and when they go back up to the lodge, he is covered in sparkling bits of sweetness. 

Derek takes him home and licks him clean.

*****

One night in that following summer he is awakened by a sound, and dresses and goes out with a torchlight to look.

Through the gap in the trees he spots a gleaming of eyes reflected back at him in the glow of the light, quickly dimmed and vanished from view. A glimpse of a tail whisking away.

He goes, follows in a trance-like state. The foliage curls in around him and brushes at his shoulders like grasping hands looking for a taste of flesh, to draw blood. The torchlight fades and blinks out, leaving the glow of the moon above to lead the way.

The paw-prints in the soil look large and distorted, and Derek feels a deep sense of unease come over him as he draws near to the riverbank. Stopping at the tree-line, he looks down to where the thing is crouched by the water, stares:

It is a man, draped in a pelt skinned from a wolf, encaged in armor assembled from the bones of the same. Tangled up in his mangy hair sits a crown woven from vines and leaves, stuck to the skull by thorns tinged sticky dark with gory mess. His limbs are long and lean; muscle lining a frame stretched gaunt and skeletal. His gnarled feet are lodged into the muck where the water splashes up on shore, and he’s bent down over the carcass of a fish and digging into it with his fingernails.

Derek swallows, and the man goes still, neck twisting towards the noise.

His face is concealed by a blank white mask, shapeless and without holes to breathe. Slowly those long fingers slide up underneath the mask and above the chin; and Derek can hear the slurping sound of the fish guts being sucked into some awful unseen mouth. 

Then the man rises up with alarming speed and darts off into the undergrowth.

*****

Should we be worried? Stiles says. He looks to the rifle over the fireplace, and Derek’s chest clenches at the look in his eyes; he seems ancient in that moment, weary from a lifetime of regret.

Cautious, he says. We don’t know how many are out there.

Stiles laughs, and the sound is bitter. He says, It’s never just one.

*****

Derek stands in the door.

Stiles sits perched on the edge of the tub, pours in the last bucket. He slips inside with the usual graceless jerking of limbs, sloshing a little liquid over the sides. Loosening into the coolness, he runs a damp cloth over his slick-wet arms, bubbles of soap sliding across his skin and catching in the light of the dull overhead lamp.

Derek watches unabashedly. Stiles looks up, catches his eye.

A beat, two. Then Stiles tips his head back and submerges, one leg hooked over the edge of the tub and dripping from the foot heel. Derek observes the steady stream of little bubbles rising from Stiles’ nostrils and sending little ripples across the glassy surface as they break.

He twists around and goes to the stairs and ascends, shuts the bedroom door quietly behind him.

Lying fully dressed on the blanket spread, he clasps his hands together over his belly. They rise and fall with every breath, and his fingers itch as he fiddles with his jacket zipper.

Stiles comes up shortly after, still naked, towel draped over his shoulders. He _tsks_ when Derek tries to rise, pushes him gently back down. You stay, he says. I’ll watch.

Derek nods, and Stiles goes out on the balcony and sits in the rocking chair, rifle resting on his lap.

*****

Nothing for a week. Radio silence.

Derek bites into a plum, juice dribbling down his chin as he chews, scowling out into the woods.

Stiles tugs on his sleeve, jerks his head to the left. Distraction? he says, smiles hopefully.

Yeah, Derek says.

They hike along the ridge to the valley on the other side, go down to the lake to swim. Stiles yelps when Derek shoves him in the water fully clothed, pops back up to drag him in by the front of his shirt.

Asshole, he says, laughs.

Derek grins smugly, splashes him.

They tread water for a while, drift aimlessly. Derek’s smile fades incrementally as the time slips away, and the crease reforms in between his eyebrows as he casts suspicious glances around the surrounding shore.

*****

That night he dreams of a child sitting on his chest.

He’s looking through the eye of his mind, from a perspective above the scene. He can see himself below, asleep. The boy-thing is crouched over him, toes wriggling against his bare flesh. Derek can feel the touch, the weight, even in this altered state. He tries to move, but finds he cannot.

The child’s back is lined with scars, deep reds and purples, caked with congealed and infected mess. Tiny black bugs swarm around the wounds.

The boy looks up, and his face is concealed by a chalk-white circle mask.

When Derek awakens, he’s drenched in sweat, breathing uneasy.

He rubs his chest and tells himself the clammy sensation against the skin there is simply imagined.

*****

Do you ever remember the people you’ve killed? Stiles says to him, at some point.

I’ve never forgotten them, Derek says.

Stiles sips from his cup, shakes his head. No, he says, taps his forehead. I mean, do you see them?

Derek pushes him out of his lap, stalks out to walk around the perimeter of the yard.

He’s starting to really hate this place. Thinks it might be time to relocate again.

He tells Stiles this later in the evening, and the boy sighs in a resigned way that suggests he’s been anticipating this for a while now.

Whatever you think is best, he says, and Derek swallows back the guilt and crushes it away into some dark corner to be revisited later.

In bed that night, they curl instinctively around each other. Derek’s feet tangled around Stiles’ ankles.

I never see mine anymore, Stiles says quietly in the dark. I can’t even remember their faces.

*****

In the morning, Derek finds him sitting cross-legged on the couch by the window, sun streaming through and casting an angelic glow about his visage. For a second, he seems transported back, looks like that fourteen year old kid again.

Something twists in Derek’s chest. It’s just not safe, he says, offering an olive branch of sorts.

Stiles turns and glares. You’re just bored of this place, he says. Then, softer: You’re just lonely.

Derek stands silent a beat. Says, I’m never lonely with you.

Stiles gets up and goes to him, loops his arms around the back of his neck, gazes up into his eyes. It’s ok, he says. It’s good to want to be around people.

Derek’s mouth thins into a tight line. How can we ever trust anyone? he says, barely more than a murmur.

Stiles kisses the corner of his mouth, rests their foreheads together.

*****

They pack light, leave the next day.

Derek glances over his shoulder, takes a last look at the lodge. A twinge of nostalgia, there and gone. He shrugs it off, sheds it like dead skin, and continues on his way.

He can feel the prickling of eyes on the back of his neck, but when he looks into the undergrowth, he sees nothing. And eventually the feeling disappears.

And whatever lurks in the forest does not follow them any further.

*****

In the mountains again, they huddle together for warmth beneath an overhang of ice jutting out from the frozen stone. The falling snow covers their boot-tracks leading up the trail, settles one the slopes like a great white sheet, both beautiful and terrible at once.

Stiles turns his head and spits, licks his cracked lips. Derek shuffles closer, draws the blanket tighter around the two of them.

I’ll start a fire, he says.

Some winged thing screeches out over the misty treetops, an indiscernible black smudge streaking across the bleeding sky.

*****

The storm lasts two full days, and they take shelter in a cave. The wind shrieks outside, batters the mountains with heavy gusts, falling hail.

Derek sits quietly near the mouth of the cave, knees drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around his legs. Stiles lurks around in the darkness, squinting at the piles of tiny rodents’ bones scattered about.

I dreamed about my father last night, he says.

Derek shifts, looks up minutely. Yeah? he says.

Stiles shrugs. I haven’t in a long time, he says. No room in my dreams for anything but you.

It’s not a judgment, not spoken with condemnation. But it stings all the same, and Derek feels, not for the first time, like he’s stolen something he can never return.

*****

They come upon a vast open tundra. Chilled and flat, near lifeless. Spying an odd structure erected out in the plains, they walk out towards it to investigate.

It is a shack, charred to blackness from a fire long back, collapsed inward around itself. Two skeletal clusters lie in the dirt out back, already crumbling to dust. Inside, Derek finds an empty crib, its white silk interior stained with blood and stinking of animal and innards.

He meets Stiles’ eye and is surprised to find his own twisted feeling reflected back at him in the boy’s eyes: that strange mix of resignation and relief. The grotesqueries no longer hold sway over either of them; if anything, it is simply good to be reminded that other people existed at all. Loneliness is the real killer.

They go out across the frozen ground, hands interlocked. Stiles squeezes his fingers, rests his head briefly against Derek’s shoulder.

The earth crunches beneath their feet.

*****

Civilization again: another highway, marked as always by a sad little gas station off the side of the road.

Stiles rolls his shoulders back and yawns, smiles tiredly up at Derek. Rest, he says, and they go in together.

On the tiled floor they spread out a circle of rocks and dirt, gather brambles from the bush out back and take berries from the same, start a fire with the sticks and eat the fruit around the soft light, laughing and sucking the juices off their fingers and speaking for the first time in years of their lives before all this, and forming plans to go out east for a bit and then back through the southwest to Mexico, down further through the jungles, ride a raft along the Amazon, drink ayahuasca in Peru.

The sky is quiet and cloudless, and the moon peers down through the dirty window. The smell of the smoke clings to their clothes, and the glow of the fire warms their brittle bones. Derek finds a guitar hidden back behind the counter and plucks out a tune, and he sings and Stiles dances, and they sleep through the night and do not dream.


End file.
